Despite some high-profile commitments from some of the industry’s largest innovators, R&D for some of the world’s most deadly neglected diseases remains underfunded and unimpressive, according to a study, a state of affairs that has barely improved over the last three decades.

Of the 336 new chemical entities approved around the world from 2000 to 2011, only 1% were for neglected diseases, according to a report published in The Lancet, and the future doesn’t look much brighter: Of the 150,000 clinical trials for new therapeutic products registered as of 2011, only 1% were aimed at scourges of the developing world.